


my heart is in my hand (yeechh!)

by howlikeagod



Series: masochism_tango.mp3 [1]
Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Relationship Negotiation, a lot of sex talk but nothing graphic, colin robinson is having a great day, it's all for the goofs folks, mockumentary, nandor is canonically into painplay and you're gonna HEAR about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/howlikeagod
Summary: A few things have changed around the house as of late. Guillermo and Nandor try to have a long-overdue talk. They mostly fail.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Series: masochism_tango.mp3 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888810
Comments: 30
Kudos: 170





	my heart is in my hand (yeechh!)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmerish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerish/gifts).



> title from Tom Lehrer's "The Masochism Tango" aka a Nandor anthem

“I have told Guillermo that we need to work on our _communication,_ ” Nandor says into the camera. He stands at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer, hair subtly poofier and less symmetrical than usual.

“It took three weeks to get Nandor to agree to actually sit down and talk about this,” Guillermo explains, sitting with his hands clasped in his lap on a chair in the fancy room. He’s wearing one of his more colorful outfits—dark maroon cardigan over a white button-up. “Our relationship, I mean. I had to resort to threats and bribery.”

He smirks lightly and looks away from the camera for a second. Guillermo twitches, clears his throat, and schools his expression into a neutral smile. The edges of his eyes remain crinkled in hidden mirth.

In Nandor’s crypt, several days earlier, Guillermo holds his hand as he descends from his coffin. Then, Guillermo starts to leave.

“Guillermo,” Nandor says, a miraculous blend of admonishing and whiny, “aren’t you forgetting something?”

Guillermo turns in the doorway and says, matter-of-factly, “No.”

“My hair isn’t going to brush itself,” he huffs.

“Then you’d better get to it.” The door closes behind him. Nandor looks into the camera, mouth hanging open in utter shock.

“Knock, knock, knocking.” Nandor pokes his head into the fancy room.

“Hi.” Guillermo smiles. He smooths his hands over his thighs and sits up straighter.

“May I come in?”

“This is your house,” Guillermo says, amused. He casts a private smile toward the camera while Nandor grimaces.

“It’s… more polite.” Nandor sweeps into the room regardless. He makes as if to plop himself down next to Guillermo. He pauses for a second, hovers—metaphorically—and swerves to sit on the chaise lounge across from him. “So. I have arrived at our negotiation. What are your terms?”

“I—That’s not really how this works—”

“I know how negotiations go.” Nandor cuts Guillermo off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Who have you taken as your hostage? Nadja and Laszlo are accounted for, I checked. Is it Colin Robinson? You can keep him. You have a lot to learn about making a power move, Guillermo.”

“I didn’t take a hostage.” Guillermo looks much less alarmed by the development than someone who didn’t know him well might expect, but there is a healthy amount of concern on his face. “Who’s _your_ hostage?”

Nandor looks guiltily into the camera.

“No one,” he lies badly.

“No, no, I couldn’t.” Nadja holds her hands up pleadingly as Silvia de la Cruz piles a plate in front of her with buñuelos. “Seriously,” she adds earnestly with a glance at the camera, “I can’t.”

Silvia gestures to the rest with a spatula.

_“¿Quieres?”_ she addresses the camera operator.

“Thank you,” comes a muffled but enthusiastic response from behind the camera.

“A lot’s changed, with me and Nandor,” Guillermo explains. He sits on the foot of a California king bed in a room that has never made it into the documentary before. The wallpaper is a soft periwinkle and a flock of taxidermy blue jays takes mounted flight across the wall on the left. “I moved into the big blue room, for a start.”

“No, I don’t sleep in Nandor’s crypt.” He snorts quietly. “He asked me to. There were… a couple of issues with that.”

Weeks previous, Nandor stands proudly in his crypt. A pair of clear safety goggles perches on his forehead.

“Guillermo is alive,” he explains, “and so he needs to breathe. This poses a problem for sleeping in a coffin. Luckily, I have found the solution.”

The shot widens. Nandor holds up a power drill. He pulls the goggles down over his eyes, revs the drill, and smiles triumphantly.

A hard cut to several minutes later shows Nandor leaning heavily against the side of his coffin. The drillbit skitters sideways, leaving a long, ugly scratch in the wood.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

After another cut, Nandor has managed to get the drillbit straight. It sinks in slowly, whirring an angry note. He nods as his project finds success.

The tip of the drill pushes through to the inside. At the unexpected loss of pressure, Nandor’s entire body jolts forward and slams into the side of the coffin. There’s an ominous creak, and the footage goes shaky when the camera operator leaps out of the way as the whole thing topples sideways off its stand.

“Fuck!”

“And it’s nice having my own space,” Guillermo continues. “I mean, I spent eleven years basically spending every waking moment by Nandor’s side. _His_ waking moments. That reminds me, I’m sleeping more now!”

He gestures to the enormous mattress behind him.

The camera pans over the room’s decor—stuffed blue jays; a massive painting of a whale staving a ship, its toothy maw agape as miniscule sailors struggle amidst iron-blue waves the size of houses; a blue and purple quilt folded on the bed. Guillermo’s voice overlays the footage.

“I thought about moving out now that I’m not a familiar anymore. But this place is my home. I missed it when I left. I missed all of them.”

“Yeah,” Guillermo nods with a laugh as the talking-head footage resumes. “Even Laszlo. I wondered for a long time why my Van Helsing genes took ten years to surface, when I was surrounded by vampires every single day. And I think it’s because I was never in any real danger from them. I mean, there have been plenty of times I’ve thought about chopping a head or two—”

Old footage from last year interrupts Guillermo, showing him polishing a broadsword while staring intensely at Laszlo.

“—and some scary moments.”

A montage of death and peril plays in choppy syncopation: the Baron killing June, the werewolf transformation on the roof of the Circuit City, Nandor dropping Guillermo during their flight, Topher hitting him with his detached arm, the Colinator splitting off from Colin to stop him from leaving.

Guillermo smiles and shrugs.

“This is where I belong. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to improve. Which is part of why I need to have a sit down talk with Nandor.” He takes a deep, nervous breath. “It’s gonna be awkward,” he whispers.

“My first… demand,” Guillermo says slowly as Nandor nods, “is—I’m sorry, this really isn’t that kind of negotiation.”

“Guillermo, I’m trying to meet you where you are going. But I can’t agree to terms of surrender if you don’t give me any.” He opens his hands in a helpless gesture with a sound like _“Eeh?”_.

“You’re not _surrendering—”_

“Of course not! I never relent. You know that.”

“So you want the terms of _my_ surrender?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

“What am I surrendering for?” Guillermo glances into the camera.

“I don’t know! You were the one who wanted to have this talk!” Nandor smacks his fists into the cushion below him in frustration.

“What talk?” Colin Robinson asks from the doorway. “What’re you guys talking about?”

Guillermo drops his face into his hands.

“Colin Robinson,” Nandor hisses, eyes slightly wild, “can’t you see we are having a meeting in the fancy room? The fancy room is for secret meetings, and you were not invited to this secret meeting.”

“Lovers’ quarrel, huh?” Colin Robinson chuckles, hands deep in his pockets. “You know, Nadja once said I’m a pretty good listener when she and Laszlo have a spat. You were there, when she said that. At my funeral. The time you guys tried to bury me in the backyard. So, where’s the beef?”

Colin Robinson raises his eyebrows. Neither Nandor nor Guillermo makes eye contact with him, nor with each other.

_“Where’s_ the _beef?”_ he repeats. “See, it’s a reference to a Wendy’s commercial from the eighties, but I’m also using “beef” in the sense of an argument or complaint, which dates back at the very least to the early twentieth century. Not a lot of people know that, because its contemporary usage—”

“Colin Robinson,” Guillermo says evenly, “please fucking leave.”

“Oh, yeah,” Colin Robinson laughs in his new basement bedroom. It is identical to his old bedroom in mirror image, except for how he has moved the Holiday Inn painting of human food approximately a foot to the left. “Nandor and Guillermo getting together? Color me _delighted._ ”

“Roommates dating each other is a juicy type of awkwardness. Mix in a boss dating their former employee and it’s almost too rich for my tastes. I have to sip rather than chug, if you catch my meaning.”

“Yes, I am the only single person living in the house now, if you don’t count the Nadja doll. Which I don’t. I’m not sure what her whole deal is with meat-Nadja and Laszlo, to be honest. But you have to understand, I’m the _only_ single person living in this house. Every time I walk into a room, there’s a good chance it will be a couple,” he holds up two fingers on one hand, “and me,” he holds up his index finger and walks it toward his other hand.

“I’m, basically, a permanent fifth wheel.” He adjusts his glasses. “So you could say this is pretty much the ideal scenario for me.”

“We just need to talk about how things are different now!” Guillermo bursts out. Colin Robinson is no longer in the room, but both he and Nandor look to be slightly more frazzled and wan than they were before.

“What? Like how you made a chore wheel?” Nandor asks, confused. “Or how we have lots of excellent sex, which we didn’t do before?”

“I—Maybe the second thing, yeah.” Guillermo tugs at the hem of his cardigan and smiles uncomfortably at the camera. “And we can bring up the first one at the next house meeting, actually. Nadja’s name has been on vacuuming duty for a month.”

“She hates the loud machine.” Nandor settles back. “You want to talk about fucking me instead of doing it? Is that your _thing?_ ”

“Not exactly—”

“Because I can work with that, but you really need to tell me these things, Guillermo—”

_“Dios mío,_ what do you think I’m trying to _do?”_ he shouts, hand in his hair. Nandor flinches at the reference to _You-know-who mío_. “Sorry.”

“Ah.” Nandor’s eyes light up suddenly with the rare spark of a complete thought. “The negotiation.”

“Yes,” Guillermo exhales a desperately relieved sigh. “No hostages, no surrender, just… I want to talk about what I want, and what you want, so we can… give each other. What we want.” He wrings his hands.

“Mhm.” Nandor nods. “Specifically about when we have sex?”

“No. But,” Guillermo laughs awkwardly, “that’s part of it. Because, you know. I could really hurt you.”

Nandor’s eyes widen under his heavy brows.

_“Yes,”_ he breathes eagerly, clearly taking Guillermo’s concern as a suggestion.

“Oh.” Guillermo looks at the camera again, deer-in-the-headlights, startled and embarrassed. “Okay, actually, let’s save that for after the documentary crew wraps this morning.”

“Yes,” Nandor says again, smiling like a horny tiger skull.

“I meant talking.”

“Oh.” Nandor sounds disappointed. “So we are done talking now?”

Guillermo sighs.

“Yeah,” he says tiredly. “This is probably as far as we’re going to get tonight.”

“Great.” Nandor stands and zips with vampiric speed across the four feet between their respective seats and back. Once he resumes movement that human eyes can track, he and Guillermo are cuddled on the chaise lounge, Nandor’s arm snug around Guillermo.

Guillermo blinks dizzily. Once he has a moment to take in his new surroundings, he tucks his head into Nandor’s shoulder. He looks up at the camera and smiles, satisfied and more than a little smug.

“Yes, it’s a mystery to me why _Guilleckmo_ ,” Laszlo attempts to roll the R with his glottis and sounds like he’s choking, “wasn’t interested in any of my sex tips. I’ve been sucking and fucking and mucking about with vampires for centuries. He can’t have been having _any_ kind of sex for more than—How old do you think he is? Certainly not more than fifty years. Fifty years of doing human things with his human penis, and he thinks he’s some sort of expert? Pfft.”

Laszlo shakes his head. “And it’s especially irritating,” the sound of a train passing overhead doesn’t deter him; he starts shouting over it, “because between you and me, Nandor is a bloody bore in the sack. He could use someone to liven him—Hang on.”

Laszlo cups a hand around his ear and looks up. The camera tilts upward to the outer wall of an apartment building. Several stories overhead, a woman with long, dark hair leans out an open window and expels a historic stream of vomit.

“Alright, my darling?” Laszlo calls.

Nadja, still in the process of skewing the annual precipitation of the Bronx up by several inches, sends him a thumbs up. Laszlo edges away from the splash zone as the contents of his wife’s stomach hit the sidewalk nearby.

“ _Señocha_ de la Cr—” Laszlo does choke this time. “Guillermo’s mother is a formidable woman. It seems Nadja has fallen prey to the bunellos. Not the ideal outcome when holding someone hostage, but there you are.”

“Can we leave now?” Nadja calls distantly.

Laszlo looks back at the camera.

“We’re meant to stick around until Nandor calls us. But the thing is, neither of us has got a phone.” He purses his lips. “Fuck it. Yes, my dear!” he shouts up to Nadja. “Let’s blow this sodapop stand!”

Nadja, up at the window, transforms into a bat. There is a muffled scream from inside the apartment and the distinct sound of someone dropping a plate full of buñuelos in shock.

“I have been a husband,” Nandor, framed by a display of swords on the wall of his crypt, counts off on his fingers, “a very sexy one-night stand, a very sexy murderer, the life of the party at every orgy I’ve been invited to, and a very sexy friend lending a hand. I’ve never been a boyfriend before.” He grins, fangs jutting out cartoonishly. “It’s exciting.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] my heart is in my hand (yeechh!)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476755) by [luftnarp-podfic (secretsofluftnarp)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsofluftnarp/pseuds/luftnarp-podfic), [secretsofluftnarp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsofluftnarp/pseuds/secretsofluftnarp)




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